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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23435158">The Thing Is</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/foramomentonly/pseuds/foramomentonly'>foramomentonly</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Jealous Michael, Jealousy, Kylex brotp, M/M, Malex, Stream of Consciousness, some Miluca</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 11:33:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,522</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23435158</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/foramomentonly/pseuds/foramomentonly</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael is jealous of Forrest. And says fuck a lot. That's it, that's the fic.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alex Manes/Forrest, Maria DeLuca/Michael Guerin, Michael Guerin/Alex Manes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>193</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Thing Is</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s not that Michael doesn’t like this new guy Forrest, per se. He doesn’t, but personal incompatibility is not the biggest issue. He’s not trying to be best friends with the guy. He just wants to go twenty minutes in his own damn town without seeing him. Is that really too freaking much to ask? And maybe also to not constantly find him hanging around Alex like a puppy on an invisible leash.</p>
<p>First, it’s Bean Me Up, where Michael stops in one early morning to pick up coffee and pastries with which to woo a justifiably still frosty Maria. There’s Alex, dressed for a run, nursing what Michael can only guess is a black coffee. And he’s with someone. Someone familiar. Someone with a really bad dye job and a very stupid cardigan. Seriously, this is small-town New Mexico, a place full of unironic cowboy hats, functional boots, and ugly plaid and turquoise <em>everything</em>. The only individuals with a real sense of style are Maria, with her boho patterns and bright colors and flowy pieces, and more recently Alex, with his military-fashion boots and dark, tapered jeans and that fucking leather jacket. At least he’s not wearing the jacket. But all this to say you can’t just throw on a dull, shapeless cardigan and dig up some boxed hair dye from Alex’s high school medicine cabinet and call it a <em>look</em>. But Alex doesn’t seem to mind. He hadn’t seemed to mind at the ranch when they first meet Forrest, either. When Forrest was two steps from getting on his knees if Alex so much as asked to borrow a pen and Alex pretended not to notice and Michael glowered at them both. And now Alex is smiling at something Forrest says and raising a perfect brow, and when he catches Michael’s eye he doesn’t hold his gaze. Michael grabs his order and stalks off, and of course, it’s Forrest who runs out to tell him he forgot to pay.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Bean Me Up is just the first time. A few weeks later he’s finishing up at the lab with Liz and Kyle, and Isobel is hanging around because she’s not working right now and she doesn’t have much else to do.</p>
<p>“All right,” Kyle says, “if we’re done, I’ve got to head out. I’m meeting Alex at the high school track.”</p>
<p>“What for?” Isobel asks.</p>
<p>“Cardio,” Kyle beams, and Michael rolls his eyes. Who gets that excited about a hamster wheel for adults?</p>
<p>“Can I join?” Isobel asks, and, oh right. Isobel does these days.</p>
<p>Kyle says, “…yes?” uncertainly and Isobel flutters her eyelashes at him like <em>good answer</em>. Liz announces she’s coming to “the ab parade” too, and Michael wonders if she’s been sampling her drawer wine already. But the whole gang is game, so he is, too. He’s a joiner.</p>
<p>They get to the track and Alex is stretching idly in one of those sporty bro get-ups—shorts, athletic shoes, and the tee-shirt that’s been cut into an extremely baggy tank top that has more functionality as a wind tunnel than actual clothing. He looks relaxed and tan, and he has a prosthetic Michael hasn’t seen before; he guesses it’s specifically for athletics. He’s objectively admiring the view when Alex grins at someone to his left and Michael looks over and it’s fucking Forrest in a college tee-shirt and a fucking sweatband. He points to their group and Alex turns, smiling uncertainly.</p>
<p>“Do we have an audience?” he asks.</p>
<p>“Isobel asked to join us. I don’t know what these two are doing,” Kyle explains, holding his hand out to Forrest like it’s the most natural thing in the world for Alex to have company that isn’t one of them or dressed in army fatigues and letting him order them around. “Good to see you again, man. You running with us?”</p>
<p>Forrest grips Kyle’s hand, and these two fuckers <em>would</em> be BFFs.</p>
<p>“Yeah, if it’s cool with you,” he says, “I’ve been meaning to get more active-”</p>
<p>“Been pretty active lately,” Alex murmurs, smirking, and Michael literally gags.</p>
<p>Alex shoots him a dark look.</p>
<p>“-and Alex suggested a run would be a good place to start.”</p>
<p>Kyle is spouting off fitness theories or whatever to Forrest and Isobel, and Liz wanders toward the bleachers, leaving Alex and Michael effectively alone.</p>
<p>“You got a problem, Guerin?” Alex asks, tone forced casual.</p>
<p>“You pick up a boyfriend since I saw you last, private?” he replies.</p>
<p>Alex, little shit that he is, has the audacity to laugh.</p>
<p>“No,” he says, “but I’ll be sure to update my Facebook status for you the second I do.”</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>That’s the thing, too. Alex won’t admit he’s dating this tragic librarian loser. He doesn’t say anything to anyone. He brings F-word to The Pony where they sit on stools at the bar facing each other and practically fellating their bottlenecks from what Michael can tell from over the pool table, where he’s pretending to line up a shot; Alex has apparently introduced him to all their friends <em>and</em> Arturo, if their biweekly lunches at the Crashdown are any indication; and they text non-stop, Alex’s phone constantly buzzing in the pocket of his fatigues or the cupholder of the Jeep where he stores it while driving them to the library or the Project Shephard bunker, or dropping Michael off at the Airstream.</p>
<p>“Want me to check that for you?” Michael asks when it buzzes three times in a row during a food run for what they now call the Secret Science Lab, thanks to Cam’s big mouth and Liz’s continuing mortification.</p>
<p>“No,” Alex says easily, “it’s Forrest. It’s unrelated.”</p>
<p>“Could be an emergency,” Michael goads, “what if he needs you to help him touch up his roots? ”</p>
<p>Alex glares.</p>
<p>“Spoiler alert: He needs you to help him touch up his roots,” Michael says in an exaggerated whisper.</p>
<p>“You could be a little less subtle, you know,” Alex says.</p>
<p>“What?” </p><p>

“This whole ‘jealous ex’ thing,” he says, jaw clenched. “It’s getting old.”</p>
<p>“We’re not exes,” Michael says, “we’re bros. And I’m just looking out for you. Bro.”</p>
<p>Alex rolls his eyes.</p>
<p>“Well, look somewhere else. I’m good.”</p>
<p>Michael grits his teeth, tries to forget that they once told each other <em>I don’t look away</em> and that Alex absolutely remembers.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>It officially becomes<em> too fucking much</em> when Forrest is at his house. Not the actual guy, though that would be bad enough, but his junk. Michael drops off some documents for Alex one night and asks to use the bathroom. Alex shrugs and steps aside to let him pass. Alex likes a neat space; he grew up in a military household with his fucking psychopath of a father and old habits die hard or sometimes not at all. So Michael notices immediately when there is just <em>stuff</em> lying around. Some folders scattered across the low coffee table; a glass on the side table still dripping condensation onto the wood; an ugly Forrest green sweater draped over the back of a chair in the kitchen. These things are very much <em>not</em> Alex’s, but there they are strewn around Alex’s space like half of a What’s Different About These Two Images puzzle come to life.</p>
<p>Michael scoffs and says, “You know if I find his toothbrush in there I’m gonna use it to clean the toilet?”</p>
<p>Alex stiffens and his knuckles go white around the handle of his crutch.</p>
<p>“What the <em>fuck</em> is your problem?” he hisses, and Michael realizes too late that Alex is carrying all the markings of a crappy day in the rigid set of his shoulders, the clench of his jaw, and the way he leans heavily on his crutch as though he’s too proud to admit he would rather be resting. But they’ve been dancing around this massive, electric blue elephant between them for too long, and Michael isn’t going to back down now. Not his style.</p>
<p>“Oh, just that you apparently have a live-in boyfriend you didn’t bother to tell anyone about,” he says, lifting his shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. “No big deal.”</p>
<p>“So what if I do? Where are you parking your Airstream these days, Guerin?”</p>
<p>Michael avoids the question by pointing at the glass still sweating on the table and asking, “Be honest, did he jump out the back window when I knocked?”</p>
<p>“Why would he?” Alex spits. “He belongs here. <em>You</em> don’t.”</p>
<p>They both pause, their anger deflating at his words that hit a little too close to the core of what they definitely are <em>not</em> actually arguing about.</p>
<p>“You can’t just bring someone into our lives like it’s nothing, Alex,” Michael says, switching tactics.</p>
<p>“I would never tell him anything,” Alex answers, taking a hesitant step forward. “You know that. I would never.”</p>
<p>
  <em>I would never tell. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I never look away. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I loved you. For a long time. </em>
</p>
<p>Michael hates the past tense. But the present sucks pretty hard right now, too.</p>
<p>“Yeah, I know,” he mumbles and turns back toward the front door. “Think I’m just gonna hold it. Have a good night, Alex.”</p>
<p>“Guerin-”</p>
<p>“Tell Forrest I said hello.”</p>
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